


A Pennsylvania Production

by CaffeinaShips



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Single case fic, finding missing women, warning for lots of very sexist language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27116407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeinaShips/pseuds/CaffeinaShips
Summary: Sam and Dean are searching for four women involved in community theater who go missing. It's not the monster they expect.
Relationships: None
Comments: 13
Kudos: 11
Collections: SPNColdestHits





	A Pennsylvania Production

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened to this story. It was supposed to be campy. It was supposed to be a 2000 word story about a campy monster. This is... not really that.

There was no choice. They were going to have to go into the spooky tunnel. 

Sam and Dean arrived in Linetown Pennsylvania two nights before, and found their typical cheapest motel. After the closest thing they ever got to a restful night sleep they had spent the day chasing down leads. 

Four women had gone missing from this town in the last four months. Sam had picked up the story from a local paper with the headline “Small Town Theater Company Reels From Dramatic Losses”. The article was short but outlined how the women had all been part of the town theater company and all disappeared without any clues. It would have been their kind of thing anyway, but after their experience with Calliope and the High School musical they were even more suspicious. 

In the morning on the first day they planned to investigate the missing women’s homes. The plan was to break in and look for evidence of supernatural trouble. Their addresses were fairly close to each other, so they hoped it would be easy to get through all of them quickly. Unfortunately luck wasn’t on their side.

The women all lived within half a mile of each other because they all lived in a sprawling apartment complex that looked no more than a few years old. The buildings were all three stories tall with 4 apartments per floor. The countryside the town was built on was flat, but the buildings were arranged to allow pleasant views of the mountains jutting up like a wall in the near distance. The buildings were all painted a soft blue or soft yellow, and each apartment had a little balcony hanging off. There were dogwood trees and small red japanese maples dotted around. 

As they turned into the development Sam took a rough guess that there were maybe 20 of these buildings spread along the confusing tangle of curving roads, parking lots, and buildings. There was a centrally located little playground fenced in.

“Looks like a nice place to live.” Sam observed.

“Sure if you want to live in a box in a maze”. 

Dean had a decent sense of direction but Sam could see from his face that two turns in and Dean already didn’t trust his ability to find his way out. They did their best to mark the location of the four separate buildings the women lived in, and swung their way back to a building near the entrance that they suspected of being a central office for the development. With such sunny, easily viewable locations there would be no way for them to poke around the missing women’s apartments during daylight without getting spotted. They pivoted to a new way of gathering info.

The door jingled as they walked into the office. A pleasant looking young woman sat behind a desk. She looked up and smiled at them as soon as they came in. Behind her desk glass walls revealed a small empty gym. The Winchesters mimicked her friendly smile.

“Hi”

Dean leaned an elbow casually on her desk, making eye contact, and then breaking eye contact to take an unnecessarily long look at the name tag pinned to her chest. 

“Kelley”

Turning on his charm, Sam thought.

“Hello! Welcome to Mountain Groves! May I help you?”

Sam thought the young woman had a near perfect customer service voice. There was no hint of annoyance, or suggestion that they might be interrupting her. There was no note of wariness at all. She had a very genuine smile. Sam pegged her as late twenties, or early thirties. He hoped she didn’t have to work in customer service much longer or the wariness and suspicion would be inevitable. 

“Maybe you can” Dean knocked the smile up another watt. “We’re new to the area and we were hoping to check on the availability of a rental”

“Oh you are in luck! And welcome to our little town by the way! Mountain Groves opened about two years ago, and applications have been steady! Currently we are at about ⅔ capacity, but Mountain Grove was built with the housing boom in this area in mind, with the aim to be at full capacity within 5 years, and we are well ahead of that goal.”

“Well, that is interesting! Any chance we could get a look at a place?”

Kelley was already reaching into her desk and drew out a brochure. She added a flair from a pile on her desk to the brochure and handed both to Dean.

“We have open houses every Sunday from 4pm-6pm. I hope we see you there tomorrow! There’ll be light refreshments!”

More smiles were exchanged and the Winchesters made their way slowly out of the maze of buildings. 

Dean’s theory was Djinn, and Sam’s theory was ghosts. Maybe something was disturbed when the Grove went up. And No, Sam didn’t think he’d just been watching too much poltergeist. They agreed to split up. Sam would seek out the town library and brush up on Mountain Grove, and Dean would speak to the families of the missing women. They would meet in 4 hours to crash the play practice of the theater group (The What’s My Line Players) the women were involved in. 

A few hours later and Sam was much more informed about the town. He learned that the town was originally a coal mining location, but there turned out to be only a little bit of low quality coal, and the whole town was bought out by a quirky industrialist who made light-bulbs and turned it into a factory town. It was a pretty successful factory town for a while, before the company moved on just before the great depression. Now the proximity to major cities and increased mining for natural gas in the area was creeping in on Linetown, and turning the town from nearly empty to up and coming. There was nothing else particularly noteworthy. No known serial killers, no other violent events.

Sam took the short walk through the downtown to the former town hall, now town theater. Sam noted a few buildings that looked essentially identical. Sam guessed they were from the light-bulb days, when the entire town ran like a factory. The downtown was smallish, with signs of growth everywhere. Brand new starbucks across from a struggling looking local coffee shop, new chipotle. The occasional building being torn down and replaced with something shiny with a lot of glass. There was a large sign in front of the old town hall building declaring “Wizard of Oz” With the word Postponed written underneath. 

Dean was sitting in Baby near the theater. He informed Sam that all four missing women (Ashleigh, Becky, Sasha, and Liz) were pretty, unmarried, and between the ages of 23 and 29. They had parents, siblings, friends, and no one reported anything weird. They were all passionate about participating in local theater.

The brothers quietly made their way to stadium seats toward the back after practice had been running for 20 minutes and all stragglers had arrived. They sat back and watched the What’s My Line crew grind their way through rehearsal. It appeared they had a gender swapped cast, with the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Wizard all currently being played by understudies. Dorothy was being played by a wiry looking young man that Sam pegged to be in his early 20s but appearing 14, with a lovely singing voice. Glinda was being played by a burly man who must be at least 6 feet tall. Sam imagined him in the iconic pink dress, and thought he would have quite an effect. The wicked witch was being played by an old man who looked like a stereotypical professor and who was at least in his 60s. 

Sam learned from the librarian that the local theater was considered above average and attracted attention from several local towns. Their modest success was something of a point of pride in Linetown. The librarian had seemed almost as distressed about the delayed Wizard of Oz as she was about 4 women missing. Watching them now Sam had to admit that in his opinion the show had promise.

Sam had given up his own theater dreams years ago. He’d never been super interested in being on the stage anyway, but he had liked the idea of working behind the scenes. There was something appealing about being part of the hidden workings of the stage magic. Invisible, but essential. Knowing the secrets, but not being known. He understood the appeal of the small town theater, even if he’d come to feel a little bit cynical about it. It was a nice idea to be able to live a normal routine life, but have the option to occasionally step into the role of a minor celebrity. To be seen, and heard, and praised by half the town and surrounding area, and then step off the stage and be a civilian again. It was like a tiny taste of the magic of fame without any of the work, or pressure, or scrutiny. Sam guessed everyone wanted to feel like they were special sometimes.

After about an hour they called for a break. Sam and Dean made their rounds and found a perfectly normal community theater group. Some people liked each other. Some people liked each other less. No one was universally hated, and generally the missing girls were missed. Though a couple of the understudies didn’t miss them as much as they could have. General small town politics for the small stage. 

Out of leads, they spent the next morning driving around and scouting the town for weird locations, and killing time until the open house. They eventually stopped at the town historical society. The old building looked a little ominous itself, needing a fresh coat of paint. In true small town historical society fashion, according to the pamphlet and grandfather volunteering that day almost every building in the town was haunted.

The town was sitting on the ruins of an unsuccessful coal mine. And with mining came the occasional accident. And then there was the light-bulb company. They knew that several of the boarding houses for employees were still standing down town, and they knew that the old factory had stood where the Mountain Grove development now stood, now they learned about the underground tunnels. 

It was quite common in places with winters to run tunnels between boarding houses and factories to ensure that your employees would be present and working rain or shine. And of course any factory was prone to accidents. Glass was being blown, wire strung, things happened sometimes. Dean was coming over to the ghost theory, and handling it with maturity, by pretending he never mentioned a djinn and had been the one to suggest ghosts to begin with. 

They arrived at the open house exactly on time. Two young couples, both freshly moving into the middle class from the poverty that followed their college years, were also there to look. Sam and Dean let them believe the Winchesters were in town for jobs in the shale gas industry. Chatter flowed as they surveyed the little gym, and heard about the seasonal outdoor pool on the property. They moved on to an empty apartment in a building none of the missing women had lived in. The little group ran into a current tenant in front of the building and Kelley from the front desk (now giving the tour) roped him into talking to their tour group. 

“How’s the electricity here? Any problems with flashing lights? Fuses blowing easily? Maybe cold spots where the heat doesn’t work, or the AC comes on?”

Subtle Dean, Sam thought. The tenant stared at him blankly for a minute.

“No, nothing like that. The buildings are brand new. Everything runs like a dream. I’ve had no troubles. The only problem I can think of is this damn drought is killing my peonies.”

The receptionist laughed, and everyone smiled pleasantly.

“What about pests? My last apartment had squirrels in the walls. I could hear them scratching at the walls and ceiling all night. It was annoying as hell.”

The receptionist’s smile got just slightly more brittle. The tenant gave the same blank look as he had to the last question.

“Nope, that’s the benefit of a brand new building. Nothing has found a way to scratch it’s way in. The neighborhood is quiet, the walls are pretty insulated, and I sleep like a baby.”

“You’ll have to excuse my brother. We used to work in maintenance and we can get kind of caught up in the details of how a building works.”

Sam shot a little look at Dean. No one liked to have it suggested that their building has vermin, especially not in front of possible tenants. Kelley’s smile brightened a tad.

“If you’re interested in the technicalities I’d be happy to take you down into the basement after this. I don’t know much about it myself, but I could show you the fuse box and the hot water heater if you want.” 

“That sounds right up my alley! We’d appreciate that.”

Dean managed to sound genuinely cheerful about it.

The apartment was cute. Sunny, new, with a pleasant view. There was a decent sized closet, and a galley kitchen that somehow didn’t feel small. It looked livable. Sam could tell from watching Dean that he was not impressed. Dean’s use of the word ‘box’ came back to Sam. Ok, it was a bit of a box, but so what? That was a pretty judgy assessment for a guy who lived in a dead man’s bunker dorm room. 

The two couples left with applications in hand, uninterested in poking around furnaces and water heaters. Kelley walked them to a small door on the back side of the building they had been in. She punched a code into a security pad next to the door without making any effort to obscure the numbers, and pushed the door open. 

The basement had a low ceiling, was sparse and contained neat rows of furnaces and hot water heaters. Along one wall there was a neat row of fuse boxes. They walked along the length of the cellar, making things up to say about the quality of the plumbing and wiring, hoping the receptionist was naive enough about the subjects that she wouldn’t notice how little they knew. 

About half way on their walk toward the other end of the cellar Dean stepped on a tile that gave a slight hollow sound. He looked up at the ceiling as if observing some pipe or other and backed up over it again. He walked on and around it a couple of times listening for the hollow thud, and talking about pipe fittings. He glanced at Sam to make sure he’d caught the same sound. They thanked Kelley and left with applications in hand.

Sneaking back in after dark was straightforward. They put on their most work man clothes and sauntered onto the property like they had a job to do. They easily keyed in the code they’d seen Kelly use and slipped into the basement carrying a toolbox with salt, iron, holy water, and other tools of the trade. 

With minimal prying the tile popped right off displaying a square of darkness. Their flashlight revealed a tunnel made of stone and brick running under the building. There was a distant echoing of water dripping somewhere, but no other light or sound. They looked at each other and sighed. It was their only lead. Swearing quietly to himself Dean dropped into the hole first, Sam following directly behind him, flashlight in hand, salt shaker in his pocket. 

The tunnel stretched out in both directions running under the building. It was as wide as a hospital hallway, and clearly not meant to be accessed. It was dark, grimy, and pitch black, and there was a trickle of water running down one side of the hallway. It smelled of mold, mildew and rot. It could either be part of the mine or the factory tunnels they had heard about. 

The obvious choice would be to split up and cover more ground by going in separate directions. There was no way in hell the Winchesters were going to do that. Dean gestured forward with his flashlight.

“This way?”

“Sure, why not.”

They pointed down the hall and headed off. They walked for a few minutes before Dean stopped them, pointing his flashlight at the ceiling. A clear square was visible in the roof of the tunnel. Dean propped his flashlight against the wall, avoiding the trickle of water. 

“Boost me up.”

With a slight cringe Sam knelt on the grimy bricks and held Dean’s leg while he stood on Sam’s leg. With a slight push Dean popped the square up a crack. Sam passed up his flashlight. His skin crawled a little as the tunnel got darker.

“It’s another basement. It looks exactly like the one we were just in.”

Dean gently replaced the tile and climbed down. Sam stayed in place on the ground for a moment, holding himself perfectly still. It didn’t really make sense, but…

“Do you hear that?”

Dean froze, one hand on his flashlight, about to pick it up, listening intently.

“Is that… Do you hear organ music?”

“I think I do… What the hell.”

They stood up a little straighter, still wary, but walking a little quicker, following their ears. They passed under a couple more exit squares, and passed through a couple of crossroads. Each time they went in the direction that seemed to lead to the music. It was possible that the music was wafting down from a building above them, but something about the quality of it suggested to them that it was in the hallway. 

The closer they got the more the music started to take on a strange sort of fake tone to Sam’s ear. They reached another crossroad and by their estimate the music was coming from around the corner. Dean waved Sam against the wall. Dean quickly peeked around the corner before flattening himself against the wall. A look of confusion slowly solidified on his face before he stood up straighter and fully stepped his body toward the music. Sam, now overcome with curiosity stepped out behind him.

The Hall opened into a large room with brick walls, and unsafe looking wooden columns. On the far side of the room with his back to them was a man in a long black cape, sitting in front of a fancy looking electronic piano keyboard. The keyboard and player were perched on top of a stage of sort constructed by loose bricks. The effect was of a dramatic organ on an elevated dramatic stage being played by a dramatic mysterious gentleman. If you squinted. And it was much darker. And you didn’t really understand the word ‘dramatic’. Sam and Dean exchanged incredulous looks. The music sounded like some intense classic neither of them were familiar with, and the music echoed around the hall in sort of tinny fashion.

Dean took another cautious step forward. Sam stepped up beside him. A moment later the music stopped. The man on the bench reached into the pocket of his black trousers and pulled out a battered looking Iphone and started scrolling some app. Dean had had enough.

“Oh what the hell is this?”

The guy jumped and almost fell off of the bench he was sitting on. He shrieked in a way that did not sound like a monster at all. 

“Don’t hurt me!” Squeaked out of the man’s mouth. 

Sam put his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Easy, we’re not going to hurt you. We aren’t here for trouble.” 

The man spun around on the bench to face them. Aside from black pants he was wearing a ruffly white shirt one might associate with pirates. He was wearing what very much appeared to be old black New Balance sneakers. His hair was dark and slicked back in a wet fashion. He was also wearing a mask over half his face. Even at the distance of across the room it looked like plastic. Dean was still unimpressed.

“Are you wearing… is he wearing… is that a phantom of the opera mask?”

The man seemed to draw himself up into what he must have thought was a dignified stance. 

“I wouldn’t expect a normie like you to understand my pain. What are you doing in my lair?”

Sam was still in soothing mode to offset Dean’s indignation.

“We’re not looking for trouble here. I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean. We’re just trying to find some women who went missing. Maybe you can help us? Maybe you know something that could be useful? What’s your name.”

The man took a cautious, wary step off of the platform and on to the solid floor. He crossed his arms over his ruffled shirt hostiley.

“I’m Drew. And what’s it to you where some missing bitches went? Can’t you get any pussy you want? What do you care about a few women who go missing?”

Sam was taken aback, but not yet deterred.

“Well, Drew, those women have families, and people who miss them. We’re trying to help here.”

Drew tossed his cape back off of one shoulder in what he likely thought was imperious instead of petulant, but petulant was how it read to the Winchesters.

“Oh boohoo. The normie’s miss their women. As if they couldn’t just get more girls to replace them. As if those women ever cared about them anyway. Everyone knows females just go with the next richest, next most handsome guy they come across.”

Dean looked at Sam with a mixture of disgust and disbelief on his face.

“What the hell is a normie?”

“YOU are a normie! You and your handsomeness! I bet you have a 401K too! I bet bitches are throwing themselves at you constantly. You and this brother of yours. Everyone knows bitches can’t resist a tall man. They like to be made to feel vulnerable and little. Everyone knows that”

“Ok, So if we’re normie’s and you are not, what does that mean you are?”

Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he couldn’t resist asking.

“I am a trucel. I know my place in the world as a beta male. I’ve accepted my ugly form and I’ve stopped fighting it. I’ve accepted my destiny to be undesirable to women. No woman will ever love me for my value because I don’t have what they value. Good looks and money.”

“Are you by any chance on the internet?”

Drew gave a contemptuous little snort. 

“I get the free wifi from Mountain Groves.”

“Dean, I changed my mind. I think I might hurt him.”

Drew drew back with a little squeak of fear. His words were more shaky and high pitched, but no less irritating to Sam.

“Typical Alpha male. Threaten and intimidate the beta males to display your value to the women. But all you get out of it is some bitch who will be unfaithful the first time she meets someone richer. I hope you enjoy your “prize””.

He put exaggerated air quotes around the world “prize”. Dean had heard enough.

“Ok Drew, this is what’s going to happen. My brother and I are going to find those women. Then we are going to take you to the police. If the women are unharmed that’ll be it. If those women are not alive we are going to come back here, kill you, and tell the police a brick fell on your head a dozen or so times. So are you going to tell us where the women are, or am I going to have to beat it out of you, because right now I would really like to beat your right-cell, or fact-cell, or whatever cell’s ass.”

“Trucel! Like incel, but awake to the truth of my own value!”

Dean took a step toward Drew and Drew hastily backed away, tripping over a brick and landing hard on his butt.

“They’re alive!” He yelped. Then he tried to regain some of his dignity. “Of course they’re alive. What good is a dead bitch to me? I’m using the one tool I do have, my brains. I took psychology as an elective in college. I know how to give someone Stockholm syndrome. I provide them with everything they need. I give them the finest clothes, the best food, fancy shampoos. Everything females value. It will take a while, but soon they will see me as their alpha provider, and I will emerge from this pit triumphant, my four beautiful girlfriends on my arm. And all the alpha males will never figure out how I did it because you are all so damn stupid. None of you have my brains.”

Dean took another stride forward, and Drew cowered back. 

“Where.”

Drew pointed a shaking finger down a hall. 

“Sam, go see if you can free the hostages. I’m going to get captain brains here packed up to go.”

Sam started off at once, confident Dean could handle the repellent little troll man and his keyboard palace. He rounded a corner and at once heard women’s voices. 

There were 2 large rooms blocked off with thick bars over the front. They looked more like they had been for storage than intended for human use. One was simply a large empty brick room. The other contained four cots. At one end curtains had been assembled along the ceiling to create a separate bathroom space. Sam could see from here a rigged shower head attached to a bare pipe, a sink just outside the curtains, and a toilet that Sam hoped was perched on a drain pipe of some kind. Clearly Drew had diverted some water for his Stockholm victims. A single bulb hung from a single wire above them. He must have diverted some electricity as well. 

Aside from four cots there were also a few wicker end tables with decorative clothes on them, several apparently untouched scented candles, some various moisturizers, make-up, hair products, and a collection of pre-made bagged salads in various states of emptiness scattered around the space. In one corner some rope had been strung to create a clothes line and multiple items of clothing were hanging there. In front of it was a haphazard pile of purses and shoes. There were lacy throw pillows lying around. 

The four women at first didn’t react to seeing Sam the way he would have expected. The two sitting on cots, and the two sitting on the floor all eyed him warily.

“Um. Hello. My name is Sam Winchster and I’m here to rescue you. Are you all alright? Can you walk?”

There was a brief pause followed by a cacophony as the women all began to talk at once.

“Oh thank God”

“You know he only gave us salads to eat? He said ‘bitches love salads, everyone knows that’. Can you believe that shit?”

“Have you seen my mom? Is she ok? She must be worried sick?”

“He bought us all size 7 shoes. I threw one at him and told him I was a size nine and he said pretty girls never have feet bigger than a size 8, and I was faking having big feet.”

“He refused to get me ibuprofen for a headache, but said females required scented candles for their health, and then wouldn’t give us a lighter.”

Sam surveyed the lock. It looked like it would be easy to pick. It would take a minute or two. One of the women was stuffing a few items of clothing into a purse, evidently packing to leave.

“Ok, just give me a minute here to get this door open and we’ll get you out of here.”

“He broke into my apartment while I was sleeping. He put a pillowcase over my head. I thought he was going to kill me.” 

“Me too”

“Me too”

“Me too”.

One of the women began crying. Sam had to work to fight down his rage so his hands wouldn’t shake and he could work on the lock.

“Have you seen my sister?”

“Is my dad ok? He must be so scared.”

“That piece of shit told me I was going to forget my family and fall in love with him if he bought me enough shoes.”

“We asked to be separated into the other room, to have more space, and he told us females always travel in packs and we would obviously want to stay together.”

The door to the prison popped open. The women stared at it warily. Sam took a step back to allow them room to exit. The woman nearest the door hesitantly took a few steps out. 

“Hi Sam, I’m Becky.”

Sam shook her hand. She’d been gone the longest. She looked healthy enough physically, but there was a deep, and very understandable rage in her eyes. Sam wondered for a minute if he shouldn’t just suggest they beat Drew to death with the gifted shoes, but pushed the thought down. The others introduced themselves as well. 

“Did he hurt you?” 

Ashleigh sneered. She’d been the third one taken.

“No, he said causing us pain would ‘ruin the conditioning’. The fucking moron. I told him I had a masters in psychology and that he was full of shit, but he said “bitches couldn’t understand the complex mind of a man””.

Jesus Christ.

Sam lead the four down the corridor and back to where Dean was waiting. Sam noted that Drew’s hands were restrained behind his back by what looked like one of his own shoe laces. The New Balance flopping open on his foot. He had a spot on his cheekbone that looked like the beginning of a nasty bruise. Dean met Sam’s eye.

“Are we all good? Everyone accounted for? Everyone can walk out of here?”

“Yeah Dean, They’re good. Just really really pissed off. Dean this is Ashleigh, Becky, Sasha, and Liz.” He gestured to the women as he said their names. “Ladies, this is my brother Dean.”

There were general murmurs of hello. Sam decided to take charge.

“Alright. Dean is going to lead us out of here with Drew in front of him. Dean will be keeping a tight grip on him. If Drew says anything. Anything. If he so much as peeps, or says bless you when you sneeze Dean is going to hit him.”

“Wait a minute” 

Drew started to object. Dean kicked him hard in the back of the knee. He landed on his knee on the brick hard. Dean grabbed his arm and hauled him back on his feet.

“Like that?” 

“Exactly like that. So Dean takes Drew, then you four, then I’m in the rear. We’ll head out the first exit we come to and get in touch with the police. Everyone ready?”

They walked at a steady pace until Dean spotted a loose panel in the ceiling. They came out into one of the identical looking basements. It was something of a trick dragging Drew out with his hands tied behind his back, but they managed. Just maybe not as gently as they could have. The building turned out to be Liz’s and she used her security code to let the group into her apartment. Dean called the police. Sam kept an eye on Drew who was made to sit in the tub to wait.

When the police arrived there was much questioning and fanfare. Sam and Dean agreed to meet the police at the station to make a statement. They got into Baby, turned onto the main road from the twisty streets of Mountain Grove, and got the hell out of there.

**Author's Note:**

> This story like most of the stories I write was for SPNColdestHits which is on tumblr, discord, and probably elsewhere. And is also the best monthly writing challenge ever, and also if you read this you should look it up and participate. This month's theme was supposed to be campy monsters.


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